The short answer to the title question seems to be: No. That is, many statistics

have been amassed, but our two guests, both serious students of the subject and men who have testified on it in many forums, cannot agree on what the numbers are, let alone what they mean. A ding-dong battle from start to finish: JJB: "In 1977 [Washington, D.C.] put across in the city council the toughest gun-control laws in the country.... The result has been a 26 per cent reduction in homicides by handguns and 22 1/2 per cent in assaults by handguns ... despite the fact that that is just the city, an island surrounded by gun-toting Virginia and Maryland ..." HBC: "... The evaluations of people who in no sense can ever be accused of being friends of ours, the Washington Post and the Washington Star, and another who are friends of ours, the Washington Police Department, do not

agree with what Sheriff Buckley just said. They have all said lately that the crime rate has increased and not decreased."